Writing is often cathartic for me, and such was the case with my last post: I felt better almost immediately after finishing it. Reflecting on my own happiness got me to thinking about what, truly, has been responsible for keeping my default mood so subdued.The answer? Me.The things that had been dragging me down—fear, guilt, regret, anxiety, sorrow—were so persistent because my primary response had been to wait for them to change. All my problems would go away if I held on long enough. External forces would eventually assert themselves and alter my situation for the better. This, coming from the control freak. No wonder I was so frequently unhappy.In the last few days, I've adopted the "Do Something About It" policy: if it bothers me, do something about it. I have the power to wash dishes when I'm tired of looking at the pile next to the sink. I am capable of spending less money so I don't feel so paranoid about my cash flow. I am not required to work on my creative side projects when I honestly don't have the time or drive to do them right. If all it takes is a minor inconvenience in the short term to stifle an issue that'll bug me in the long term, then I'll feel better doing something about it instead of gritting my teeth for days or weeks or months on end.The "Do Something About It" policy extends beyond the realm of physically doing something, too. Many of the things that annoy and depress me are beyond my ability to change, yet it's up to me whether I allow my negative feelings about them to take me hostage. Does the motorist who fails to use his turn signal really deserve more than a few seconds of righteous frustration from me? Am I a better person for only ever getting sad when I think of my deceased relatives, as though their absence is the only thing worth remembering about them? I lose more than I gain when I dwell on my aggravations and sorrows. Acknowledging them is one thing, but there's a certain point when it's no longer productive—if not outright counter-productive—to focus on the negative.That's where I find myself now: identifying when it's no longer productive to focus on the negative. Whether by thought or action, I'm making my life a happier one. It's the best I've felt in a long time.

My predictions last month about what I'd have to show for myself this month might've been ambitious, but they weren't entirely off the mark. Some of the specifics didn't come to fruition—I'm still working on the next installment of my Mega Man 7 playthrough—but gee golly did my other accomplishments balance out my oracular oversights. In short, November was pretty awesome, if not in terms of quality then in terms of sheer productivity.

GameCola:Funny; I thought I'd be writing more for GameCola and less for this blog. Partly because I haven't been playing too many new games to write about, and partly because I've been spending all my GameCola time on making videos and editing articles, the podcast is the only item here that really counts (and it's definitely one of my better podcasts). The video post was slapped together to conclude our extended celebration of The END DAY, and the review was written at the end of October, so I feel like a slacker. Of course, behind the scenes, I was laying the foundation for our next RPG podcast, too...Podcasts:- GC Podcast #68: Of Consoles and PeripheralsReviews:-King's Quest V: Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder! (PC)Videos:-Crystalis: NES vs. GBC

The Backloggery:This might not look like much, but that's because I've been spending most of my gaming time on longer games that can't be beaten in only a few sittings (unless you're insanely good or in full-on marathon mode). Furthermore, I've been spending some time working toward full completion status on the occasional game that I beat months or years ago, and that generally takes longer, what with all the secret-searching and additional dying on Hard Mode and whatnot. Next month should be pretty substantial, though.New:- Mega Pony (PC)Beat:- Mega Pony (PC)Completed:- Mr. Robot (Steam)

November feels like another turning point in my writing and recording careers; I'm excited to see how things develop from here.

I keep sitting down to write blog posts this month, and I keep deciding I don't have much to say. I've been keeping busy with more side projects than usual, and for once, juggling side projects hasn't meant throwing a few of them so far in the air that I forget I'm juggling them. There's ample subject matter to discuss...but nothing stands out as particularly post-worthy (not that that's ever stopped me before!).

Still, the urge to write is there. I've been fixin' for a philosophical post, but I don't know what about. I want to geek out about something, preferably something different from my usual fare, but I keep coming back to things I'd prefer to contribute to GameCola than post here. I have the drive to share thoughts, stories, something, but I lack a topic to anchor and inspire me. So, if there's anything you want to see me write about, now's a great time to request it. I'll talk about absolutely anything if you're genuinely interested, though anything I discuss here will need to go through my "Is this appropriate for a public blog accessible by children and potential employers alike?" filter first.

As you know if you've been following me for any length of time, I keep myself busy with plenty of online projects, and I like to recap what I've done each month in a handy link post. I'm not one to suddenly break with tradition, so here you go:

Not that I wrote all that much, but August was characterized by reflections and analyses. Anime, conventioning, and the joint geek blog I worked on before coming here received the kind of writing attention they seldom do. It was a nice change of pace, and I'm glad to have sorted out my thoughts on virtual paper—writing is just as often a chance to share my thoughts as it is to figure out what my thoughts are in the first place.

This was an all-time low for me. In the four-and-a-half years I've been writing for this videogame website, I've never been so lazy and uninvolved. Granted, most of my creative energies were focused on YouTube, but that doesn't excuse this poor showing—my mundane Q&AmeCola response was submitted at the end of July, so I officially only wrote two sentences. My goal for next month is to get back on the obscure gaming horse and resume writing and editing articles like I mean it.Columns:-Q&AmeCola: NES Games RemasteredVideos:- GC Podcasts #47-49 on YouTube: The Best Uncut Games Pronounced "Crystalis"

This is where my attention was. The looooooong-awaited beginning of my Mega Man 7 playthrough, collaborative commentary with the GameCola crew that makes me out to be a terrible person, and the first half of the game I've been looking forward to seeing most from the all-day livestreaming Mega Man marathon my buddy and I did at the end of last year. It's exciting to have my recording efforts feel more like a side project again than a side note like they've been.

Having been on an adventure game kick for several months, and having recently completed the all-consuming Mega Man X: Command Mission, I was ready to break into the collection of vintage RPGs gifted to me back in April. Old games I don't have a problem with; awkward interfaces and gameplay that's markedly different from what I'm accustomed to can be a challenge.

I'm normally anti-walkthrough unless I get hopelessly stuck, but this latest batch of games has inspired me to adopt a policy of (a) consulting the manual before tackling anything remotely puzzle-oriented, and (b) referring to a walkthrough at the first sign of trouble in any game that's not my usual fare and/or is starting to overstay its welcome. I've been much happier for it.New:- Chrono Cross (PS)

Back when I was writing for geek blog Exfanding Your Horizons with my pal Alex, I discovered another blog called The Dork Dimension. Thoughtfully written by a guy named Nathan, unabashedly geeky, and sporting a clean and eye-catching page design, this blog was like looking into a mirror that reflects what you want to see about yourself. Part admiration, part casual rivalry, in the back of my mind I always wanted Exfanding to be at least as good as its uncanny counterpart. This blog even started the same week ours did—every time we had a birthday celebration for Exfanding and looked back at our exploits of the past year, it wouldn't be long before I saw The Dork Dimension doing the same thing.

Happy fifth birthday, Dork Dimension. You beat us.

Exfanding formally went on hiatus at the beginning of this year. At the time, it was a recognition that my co-blogger had gotten so busy that our joint blog was becoming my solo blog. We'd each had busy times before, and had covered for the other guy until things settled down in a week or two, but we'd never gone for months without hearing from the other guy. It was a mutual agreement to put the blog on hold, but I don't think either of us expected it to end there. I doubted we'd ever have a full comeback and pick up where we left off, but I envisioned a last hurrah of about a dozen posts, wrapping up as many loose ends as possible before closing up shop for good.

Somewhere in perpetual limbo are a guest post about roleplaying games, a list of Mega Man tips and tricks that just needs screenshots, and a beginner's guide to Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes that might never make it past Season 4. The tentative release dates on these posts reveal my optimism for our grand return: the end of February, not even two months away. We're now about as close to next February as we are to last February, and the thought of bringing back Exfanding hasn't yet come up in conversation. Heck, I've hardly heard from Alex in months—a short text message, a shorter e-mail, and a coffee shop meet-up or two are about all I can think of since the hiatus. Life happens, as they say.

So when The Dork Dimension's five-year post came up in my blog feed, it made me wonder what Exfanding Your Horizons was up to. Was it our birthday already? How odd not to be celebrating. How sad that I had forgotten. Just as writing for Exfanding had been part of my routine for four years, not writing for Exfanding is part of my routine now. I take it for granted that it's Alex's turn to post next. I hadn't considered how long an indefinite hiatus really was until I looked in the mirror and saw the anniversary I wasn't celebrating.

We had a good run at Exfanding. We had our ups and downs, but I'm proud of the work we did. I'm proud of the layout I taught myself HTML to make. I'm proud of the collaborations, our discipline in sticking to our posting schedule, the way our writing styles developed over the years. I'm proud of the friendship we developed. I asked an ex-coworker I had known for barely three years—predominantly through the Internet, at that—to be one of the groomsmen at my wedding. I think that says something about us. We may never write for Exfanding again, or we might be back in full force next week. But ultimately, it isn't how long something lasts that matters; it's the impact it makes while it does last.

Over the last several days I've been working on a post about Otakon 2013, the 20th annual anime, manga, and general Japanese culture festival that once again saw Baltimore's Inner Harbor overrun with tens of thousands of otaku, many of them in costume.To hear me tell about the highlights, you'd think it was a great convention—an off-the-wall Lupin III movie, a panel on the evolution of anime throughout the past century, a tasty bacon cheeseburger and handmade vanilla Coke at Johnny Rockets, a new Mega Man X4 keychain for myself, plenty of time spent with friends I haven't seen in fiveever (that's like forever, plus one)... To hear me spin the complete yarn, however, you'd be depressed and possibly bored by the end of it—public transportation fiascos, mood-wrecking delays and setbacks, frequent surprises unsuitable to the squeamish, anxiety and annoyance about situations involving other people... It was cathartic to get my thoughts and feelings out on virtual paper, but especially after having my wife read through a near-final draft, I came to realize that this post was really only meant for me. I had tried to write it for an audience, but it wasn't meant for one.

I notice I haven't written anything here for over two weeks. I've barely done anything for GameCola in the last month. My attention's been elsewhere: after more than a year of unexpected delays and technical headaches, I've finally had the time, ability, and motivation to work on my Mega Man 7 playthrough videos for YouTube. I've been recording every few nights for the last few months, and the first proper installment in the series went live last week. It's been a joy to read the comments on the new video. Even with a scant bit of criticism, the overwhelming consensus is that this video was worth the wait. It has met, if not exceeded, everyone's expectations. At the time I'm writing this, the video has 3,322 views, 247 Likes, and 0 Dislikes.

That is very, very cool.

Now the pressure is on to make the next video just as good, if not better. Normally this is not a concern—as long as I'm having fun making a video, that's all that matters. Whether it's recording or writing, I try to generate the kind of content I'd want to see, and it's usually the case that other people like to see the same things I do. That's why I ultimately scrapped my Otakon post—it was necessary to write it, but I didn't want to read it.

As I'm recording the next video, I need to remind myself that this isn't a competition. I don't need to outdo myself. And I don't need to "give the fans what they want," as though I can read minds or trust my more vocal viewers to always speak for everyone. What matters is a finished product I'm happy with. Something I'd be excited to show others if it weren't my own. After all, that's what got me into blogging and recording in the first place—the desire to share the things I'm excited about with others. I think I might've misplaced my enthusiasm in the last few days—I've been more interested in the act of sharing than the thing I'm sharing.

Did I enjoy Otakon? Yeah, parts of it. It ended on a high note, for sure. Maybe I'll tell you about the good stuff someday. Maybe I've learned some lessons about conventioning that'll help me from ever reaching the same low points again. Maybe this is all you'll get out of me about Otakon unless you ask me in person. It's hard to say for sure. For now, I'm content to be writing again—writing what I feel like writing, instead of what I feel I should be writing. It makes a world of difference.

"General bitterness commentary." That's how one of my friends has described my recent creative work. It's true, you know.

I've always been something of a perfectionist, so complaining about things that are less-than-perfect comes naturally to me. Still, I can do more than complain. I prefer to do more than complain. I used to be a very laid-back, happy-go-lucky sort of guy. Humor used to flow easily into my writing. What happened to me?

Perhaps a better question is, "What happened to the world around me?"

Anybody who knew me in elementary, middle, or high school and has seen me even remotely recently could probably tell you I really haven't changed much. I'm taller, wider, and beardier, but still a theatrical goofball with an overactive imagination and a cabinet full of Spaghetti-O's. I'm still a terrible backseat gamer, a goody two-shoes who can barely lie to keep a birthday party a secret, and a squeamish liability at a horror movie. I have the same lack of fashion sense (thankfully I'm through my sweatpants-in-summer phase), essentially the same hairstyle (with a few exceptions, like the floofy ridiculousness featured on my first driver's license), and the same penchant for playfully flipping other people's ponytails and pigtails whenever they're within reach (long hair is magical). I'm not absolutely identical to the me who walked into his first day of fourth grade and threw up on the floor, but I'm not too far off.

I also tend to be more forthcoming about personal information than I should be. Maybe I should work on that.

The more I think about what I've been writing, the more I'm realizing what the root of my bitterness is. Everything that makes me happy is being systematically distorted into something that makes me unhappy. No doubt there's more to it than that, but I cope better with Big Life Stuff and the stress of being a so-called "grown up" when my sources of entertainment function as escapism, and not something to be escaped from.

I've stated before that it usually takes time for me to warm up to change. I am not instinctively opposed to it, but I don't often see the need for it. Don't fix it if it ain't broke; make it better, not just different; that sort of thing.

Over the last several years, I've watched my three favorite entertainment franchises--Star Trek, Metroid, and Mega Man—veer off toward the boundaries of what I'll tolerate as a fan. I've endured an endless parade of website redesigns that seem to cater more to the people designing them than the people using them—Facebook, YouTube, Gmail, Pandora, and Blogger have undergone everything from minor tweaks to major overhauls, inevitably replacing something I love with something that annoys me. I've seen more and more large corporations—Capcom, Nintendo, Microsoft, Borders—make decisions that call into question whether they know anything about their consumers.

I've witnessed geek culture get absorbed into the mainstream with The Big Bang Theory, 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons, and Mega Man 10's Easy Mode; now I'm just like everybody else, and my geek cred means nothing because we're all geeks now. I've watched the fan community create so many mashups of Firefly, Zelda, Star Wars, Calvin & Hobbes, and Doctor Whothat there's barely any meaning left to them—what was once a charming novelty has become a mass-produced commodity. I've heard more and more music on the radio that hooks me with a great instrumental introduction and sends me away screaming when the vocals come in.

Too much change. Too little improvement.

And too much time spent agonizing over the few major merits in a sea of incredible flaws. If only they had fixed this, or left out that, we could've had something more amazing than anything before it. I miss the days when I could simply like or dislike something without deliberating over the pros and cons. It's draining to write about the things I love when they're also the things I hate, but the things I merely like usually don't get me fired up enough to talk about them unprompted.

Thus, you have my general bitterness commentary. However, if I can get off my soapbox, I'm sure I can also get out of my...um...complainy pants. Bitterness boxers? I should stop gravitating toward clothing.

Effective as soon as I feel like it, this blog will be taking a more positive direction. I still reserve the right to complain, but I'd like to do so in a manner that's more humorous and thoughtful than it is straight-up cathartic. I feel more like myself when writing with a smile on my face, and I haven't done enough of that lately. I take requests, so let me know if there's anything you'd like to see.

Ah, May. While my creative contributions and gaming accomplishments might not have been as visible as in previous months, plenty was going on behind the scenes: longer posts requiring more time to pull together, a D&D session for which to prepare, a new computer to set up, another 20 hours or so exploring Mega Man X: Command Mission, powering through Netflix's vintage Dr. Who offerings with my wife, and the return to a regular recording schedule for my Mega Man 7 playthrough, to name a few.

Most of my GameCola time was devoted to editing articles and writing this one post, which is the inevitable result of researching nice Flash games and realizing you've already come across enough of the not-so-nice ones to populate an entire column.

Yay! Another installment of the livestreaming Mega Man marathon I did at the end of 2012 with my buddy Dash Jump and my wife Z-Saber. If this doesn't hold you over until my solo playthrough of MM7 comes out, I don't know what will.DashJumpTV:-Megathon 2012: Mega Man 7 (SNES)

A bit of housekeeping this month; I discovered a few new games I had never cataloged when transferring everything to my new computer (some indie games from a Humble Bundle that were independent downloads, and not on Steam as I'd thought).I also started hacking away at more of the unfinished games weighing down my collection—one I didn't own anymore, one I never owned to begin with, one that was a duplicate, one that doesn't have an ending (and I'd never get good enough to beat it anyhow), two fangames I'd tried out of curiosity but didn't feel like bothering with further, and one game I could beat, if I felt like wasting entire hours of my life on endless fetch quests and atrocious controls. See if you can figure out which is which.

As has been my tradition with my previous Flash Flood columns, all the new games I reported on got added as well, whether or not I should admit to having beaten them. The last item of particular note is the completion of Portal 2, made possible by finally finding the time to finish the co-op mode with my friend from overseas. Nothing like catching up with the bandwagon two years later (which, for me, is actually a wild improvement over the norm).New: - Aquaria (PC) - Dota 2 (Steam) - Infectionator! (Brwsr) - Karoshi: Suicide Salaryman (Brwsr) - Kick a Migrant (Brwsr) - Light People on Fire (Brwsr) - Lugaru (PC) - Penumbra Overture (PC) - Tofu Hunter (Brwsr) - World of Goo (PC)

April brought everything back into balance for me. I found time to write, play, record, and do all that other cool off-camera stuff the rest of the world can only guess at (though if you guessed, "making an impromptu trip to the grocery store because you had an uncontrollable craving for salad," then you are correct). Here's what happened as it pertains to the Internet:

After seeing the frighteningly long list of additions to my Backloggery back in February, I swore I'd cut back on collecting games and start playing more of the ones I had. This went exceptionally well until I was gifted with a mega-pack of fantasy roleplaying games from GOG.com. Only my Backloggery is complaining, though; a lot of these are games I've been curious about, and the rest seem right up my alley.

I have become acutely aware of my own mortality. I've spent enough time visiting hospitals and nursing homes to last a lifetime; everything from old age to suicide, car crash, fatal illness, natural disaster, and freak accident has claimed, or at least threatened, the lives of my friends and family in the last few years alone. I realize we're all going to die someday. With all the news coverage anymore of killing sprees, bomb detonations, and threats of nuclear war, "someday" feels more and more like it's being measured in days, not decades.

One of the biggest question marks for me is what happens when you die? Aside from the obvious, of course. Maybe this life is all we get; maybe there's an afterlife; maybe I'm destined to be a chinchilla next time around. I'm still figuring out exactly what I believe, and even different sects of the same religion can't always agree about life after death. I'd like to at least be firmly rooted in my beliefs when it's time to go, so that if I'm wrong and am sentenced to hell / nothingness / Pittsburgh, it's not because the buzzer went off before I could respond to the Final Jeopardy answer of, "This is what happens after you die."

Presumably, unless the world is some sort of cosmic Truman Show that goes off the air when I, its star, kick the bucket, life will go on for you after I die. Part of the reason I write so much—aside from the fact that I enjoy writing—is because it's a tangible legacy for those who care about me. Barring a global catastrophe or a drastic shift in data retention policies and capabilities across the Internet and home computing, I've got blog posts and journal entries that, collectively, tell or hint at the story of my life from at least as far back as the turn of the century—not to mention all those videos, photo albums, and all that poetry I wrote in high school. My hypothetical children and grandchildren won't ever have to wonder what I was like, if I expire before they get to know me. And there's more than enough material here for future generations to create a lifelike holographic AI of me, should future generations ever be so foolish.

I won't be here forever, but my life doesn't have to end with my death. As long as someone out there has a memory of me, a memento, even a stupid habit they picked up from me, I'll never truly be gone. Order a steak and ask the waitress for a Roy Rogers. Sit down with a homemade pizza and watch an episode of Star Trek. Spend an afternoon playing Mega Man or Chrono Trigger. Sing along to "Weird Al." Wear a fez on Christmas morning. I'm as good as there with you.